Cedar Mills plays for pride and plays well

The local all-stars finish pool play at 2-2

PORTLAND - Call it guts.

Call it heart.

Call it perseverance.

Call it Cedar Mill.

Cedar Mill's Majors all-stars came from behind to win with another gritty performance Monday in the Little League Softball World Series at Alpenrose, using a six-run fourth inning to rally past Canada's Layritz Little League of British Columbia 9-6 and close pool play at 2-2.

Despite the team's solid play at the Series, Cedar Mill finished third in its pool and did not make the tournament semifinals.

"We're pretty happy (with our play), but we're a little bummed out we didn't make the semifinals," said Cedar Mill shortstop Madeline Fey, who doubled home two runs in her team's watershed fourth inning.

Cedar Mill ends its Series in the fifth/sixth-place game at 1 p.m. Wednesday against Gilroy Little League of Gilroy, Calif.

For a complete game story, see Thursday's edition of the Beaverton Valley Times. To view a complete photo gallery from this game, go to www.milesvance.exposuremanager.com and click on the "Summer 2006" link.

Madeline Fey - We just wanted to get back in the lead so we tried hard. We were a little nervous but it didn't affect anything.

Erin Gray - It was kind of a meatball. It was the second one. The one that I hit was a meatball, and then when Madeline hit the one, it was a meatball too. I was watching it the whole way and then I rounded second and I wasn't watching it. Then I came around third, stopped and Bob told me to go back. Slam? I was like 'Oh my gosh.' That was a nice hit. Coming back reminds me of an ASA game when we were down 9-0 going into the bottom of the sixth .. and we came back 10-9. It was really cool.

Bob Ryder - This game was not much different from the game yesterday except we got the one solid hit from Erin. That was the defining moment again. We were behind twice and we came back twice. Like I said all along, they will not lay down. That was a lot of energy they expended in that game last night, and to come back and play with that kind of heart again just shows what they have in them and makes me so proud of them. It's a challenge. She hit all her spots the first couple innings, we made the defensive plays; it just seemed like they were starting to get on her so that's why I decided to change the pace of the pitching. It had nothing to do with the home run.